


There Should Have Been A Painting

by AnxiousCoffee (TheHallowedAngel)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Detox, Extended Scene, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Sick Klaus Hargreeves, Sickfic, Vomiting, emeto, klaus is having a bad time, so have this puke, they missed the opportunity for some good emeto so I'm adding it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 23:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17907722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHallowedAngel/pseuds/AnxiousCoffee
Summary: Diego tied him to the chair and left him to his thoughts and the ghosts that were waiting for his system to clear. And when things start to fall apart and Klaus can't hold them all together anymore, who's going to come and pick them all back up again?





	There Should Have Been A Painting

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me, this was written way too early in the morning to avoid the school work piling up, forgive the mistakes.

Klaus was familiar with this feeling, the chills that started in the pit of his gut and spread, tingling, all over his entire body. He was starting to detox, again, and the ghosts were creeping back in.    
  
He could feel the sweat pouring down his face and back and basically everywhere else sweat could possibly pour down and he knew for a fact that his eyeliner was smudged. His stomach churned and his blood caught fire and his skin was growing increasingly uncomfortable- half of him was almost convince he could just step out of it, if only he could find the zipper.   
  
But what would even step out of it? What was he underneath all this flesh and (very, very small amounts of) fat? He found the thought of his skeleton emerging and wandering off to find drugs quite amusing, and he laughed softly to himself as he struggled against the ropes again. Blast that Diego, he was far too good with knots.   
  
He considered calling out but he supposed that no one would listen, Diego was who knows where and Luther hated him, Allyson was likely the same as Diego and, well, Five had been MIA for a while now. Vanya was off with her boyfriend, the very same man they had chased her into the arms of with their ingrained, unconscious urge not to include her in family matters. He was alone.    
  
Kind of.   
  
Ben was sat off to the side, watching him carefully, and as Klaus caught his eyes he was all too aware of why he was the one one who saw them. Ben had died a fair few years ago, it was their mistakes that cost him his life, but here he was in the-...in the spirit, still sticking with Klaus even though he was hopeless.    
  
And Klaus also realised, painfully, that while number five got a big painting hung up, Ben got nothing. Sure they buried him and gave him a  statue but that was out in the courtyard where no one ever went.   
  
"You should have had one too." He muttered aloud, and he alarmed himself with how far away and pathetic he sounded. Ben seemed taken aback, knitting his little ghostly eyebrows together.    
  
"What? Drugs? Not sure how that would even work." He shook his head, not understanding. Klaus almost wanted to shout at him for it, but he stopped himself. Ben could see and talk to him, not read his thoughts. He took a breath and swallowed the growing nausea and spoke again. This time his voice sounded stronger, louder, and more like it came from his mouth.   
  
"A painting. You should have had a painting, not just a grave. He knew you were dead but no picture, he only assumed Five dead and he got one, but he knew we'd killed you." Klaus hung is head, ashamed, and refused to look over at Ben, instead focusing on the bucket on his lap; it was a pretty blue.   
  
"How many more times? You didn't kill me, Klaus, none of you did. I was the one who got to confident. I got me killed, you can't shoulder that blame. And I don't want a picture, not really my style." Ben was stood up now, not that Klaus could tell, and he was wandering towards him.    
  
The tingling in Klaus' skin got louder as he did, he almost flinched away when Ben out his hands on the back of the chair, fingertips brushing through Klaus' back and making him shiver.   
  
"You still should have gotten one. Bet I could paint you one, huh?" Klaus was still staring into the bucket, almost out of anticipation now though. His stomach was starting to kill, a pulsing, burning pain was settling right on in and the nausea was boiling over now. Maybe his stomach hurt because of the detox, maybe it was because Diego socked him in the gut. Honestly, he may never know.   
  
"Course you could. You feeling okay?" Bean peered over his shoulder and bent over the chair to peer at his face, Klaus turned away and strained at the ropes but of course he couldn't get away.    
  
"Who, me?" He replied, defeated and deflecting. "Oh I'm fine." Somehow, and Ben had to congratulate him for this, his voice stayed even and almost as playful as it always sounded. Klaus had a voice that dared you to ask something scandalous, that could turn words into a game for two and a night of everything but sleep. He could charm the socks off of anyone with his smooth tone, Ben had witnessed it himself. Even if he'd rather have not.    
  
"No, you're in pain. I can see it." Klaus shook his head.   
  
"Maybe, but it's not too bad, you know how much I love it when people make me squirm." Ben saw the corner of his mouth turn up in an empty smile but his eyes, glassy and dark, didn't smile with him. Klaus felt his stomach, no his entire abdomen, clench and he tensed up so fast he swore he almost folded in on himself, he hung his head lower, squeezing his thighs tighter around the plastic bin between them. Ben was growing agitated and the prickling was starting to burn.   
  
"Klaus, damn it, stop deflecting!" Ben would have punched him if he could, Klaus was sure, but he had to settle for moving in front of him and crouching in his line of sight.    
  
Somewhere else in the room, Klaus heard someone starting to cry, and tears dripped into his bucket that can't belong to him. Klaus Hargreeves doesn't get over such little things as tummy ache, even if that tummy ache felt like someone was eating him alive from the inside out. Who knows what cocktail of drugs he was working out of his system this time, even he didn't know the answer to that.   
  
Ben didn't comment, naturally, because Klaus wasn't the one who was crying. All the same, he would want to wipe away those tears and hold him close, had it been Klaus. And had he not been dead.   
  
A sob echoed in the empty room along with a gurgling sound that made both of them flinch. Klaus bit his lip to keep anymore sound inside of the mouth of whoever was crying, because it wasn't him at all, and he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed whatever he could. Loneliness, regret, pain, nausea, grief. All of it. He pushed it into the pit of his stomach, but that was a mistake.   
  
Barely a second passed and his eyes snapped open as his upper body convulsed, stomach rolling and back arching and chest pushing out painfully against the ropes as a weak stream of sick splattered into the bucket. Ben had to fight off the urge to do something, anything, to help as Klaus coughed and sobbed again and then gagged on his own self pity, bringing up more alcohol and something Ben supposed was food at one point. He spat into the bucket, throat working over and over as he swallowed any other heave that dare try to crawl up his chest.    
  
There was a small moment where nothing, no sound, but silence hung in the room, Klaus wasn't sure if the sour smell was his stomach contents or the emptiness surrounding him, but he held his breath and counted to ten and hoped whatever it was would just go away.   
  
"I want it to stop" Klaus spoke finally, forcing the words through gritted teeth. The pressure on the back of his tongue was building again; swallowing wasn't helping anymore. Klaus couldn't hear himself talking, it sounded like he was underwater, but every other noise in the room was amplified. The old flooring creaked and an explosion went off in his head, dust settled and someone was banging pots together inside of his head, Ben looked at him and his ears rang.   
  
"I know." Ben spoke quietly but to Klaus it sounded like he was screaming at him. "The pain will pass soon."   
  
"Not the pain." Klaus spoke louder now, swallowing thickly before he looked at Ben. "All of it. I want all of it to stop. You guys all get it easy, you know that? Sure you're dead but your power turns on and off, just like Diego's and Five's and Allyson's. I can't tune out of ghost radio, they're always just sat here, yelling at me and begging me to help them, o-or stood around me, looming as if they're just waiting for me to die of fright so they can jump inside my body."    
  
Klaus sobbed again and found himself whispering "no" over and over and over, shaking his head and closing his eyes and bearing his teeth as if any of it would make it go away. As if it would dull the pain or out out the fire in his bloodstream or stop him from feeling so sick.   
  
He knows he did this to himself, he put the drugs inside of his body and kept numbing away his fears. 

 

He was just a junky, a junky and a stain on the Hargreeves name. He tugged his arms against the ropes and hung his head back in defeat as hundreds of voices flooded into his head, faces emerging from every crack in the walls and gap in the floorboards, dead eyes staring at him and cold hands clawing at the door.   
  
Ben watched as he started to panic, chest heaving and pupils blowing wide as he rolled his head forward again and started to plead for them all to go away. Klaus suddenly felt 13 years old again, trapped inside that mausoleum with no light and no comfort. He was drowning inside his own body without a drop of water in his lungs and Ben was watching as Klaus fell to pieces in the chair.   
  
His belly twisted again and Klaus retched up a thick wave of beige coloured slurry, choking on it, missing the bucket just enough to fleck his tight trousers with puke as he clenched his fingers around the arms of the chair. The room was starting to buzz and Klaus couldn't even hear anything else anymore, he could feel himself starting to pass out and he needed to breath but he couldn't, no matter how much his lungs were hurting.   
  
Another gag brought up what felt like pure stomach acid, it burned his throat and nose as it splashed into the trash can and sloshed over the sides and onto the floor. Strings of the foul stuff clung to his lips and chin and he hoped to god that Ben wasn't looking anymore as he belched up a meager wash of bile and spit.    
  
Detoxing was much more bearable when you could use your arms and get to the toilet, plus you could shout for a nurse and someone could sit with you through it. Not that he ever did, but the option of not being alone was comfort enough. When you had no choice but to sit through it alone, it was like trying to swim up a stream without an arms.   
  
And even though his stomach was painfully empty, he was still dry heaving over the bucket, desperately trying to bring something up that wasn't his stomach or lungs, fading slowly away from it all.   
  
Somewhere in the haze, he could barely make out the sound of rushed footsteps on the stairs outside of the door, but the static was growing unbearable and he couldn't even begin to try and place a name to them.   
  
Klaus sucked in a breath just as the door opened but it was too little too late, he reasoned, as his head lolled to the side and his eyes stopped working. Someone with warm hands took hold of his cheek but he didn't open his eyes, but he felt them move the pail from between his legs and somehow found the voice to thank them before he disappeared to the place he always went when he wasn't awake.   
  
But as he wandered over there he realised that the person smelt like coffee and blood and he would have laughed at how silly that was, if he wasn't stranded in his own mind.


End file.
